Bill Reynolds: Aaron Hernandez — A story that couldn't be made up

Friday

Apr 21, 2017 at 7:48 PM

Bill Reynolds Journal Sports Columnist breynolds401

FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH:

Truth is stranger than fiction?

No doubt.

No one could have made up the incredible Aaron Hernandez story, this tragedy that reached its end this week with the former Patriots star killing himself in his Shirley, Mass., jail cell just days of being acquitted of a double-murder charge.

It was all there: fame, money, football, celebrity, drugs, all swirling around in a very public way.

Has there ever been a more bizarre story in the history of New England sports?

Hard to think of one.

• URI basketball coach Dan Hurley wrote a beautiful column in Sports Illustrated about his father and the closing of St. Anthony's, the New Jersey high school made famous by his father, and the place he and his brother grew up in.

• There's no truth to the rumor that the Independent Man was spotted working on one of the road crews the other day.

• Tiger Woods just had his fourth back surgery, as more and more it seems as if he's deep into the back nine of his illustrious career.

• The Patriots have been remarkably quiet on Hernandez.

• QUIZ OF THE WEEK: The Bruins' Patrice Bergeron, a three-time winner of the Selke Trophy for the NHL's best defensive forward, is a finalist for this year's award. Who has won the award the most times? (Answer near the bottom of the column.)

• LINE OF THE WEEK comes from a friend of Aaron Hernandez in a 2013 Rolling Stone story: "Aaron's out of his mind. He's been twisted on [angel] dust for more than a year, which is when all this crazy [stuff] started.''

• LINE OF THE WEEK II comes from the cover of the New York Daily News, next to a big picture of ousted Fox superstar Bill O'Reilly: "NO JOB ZONE.''

• LINE OF THE WEEK III comes from A's outfielder Khris Davis on his teammate pitcher Kendall Graveman: "He can cut some bats up. That's where wood goes to die.''

• LINE OF THE WEEK III comes from Brian Murphy, one of Hernandez's former agents, in the New York Daily News: "Absolutely no chance he took his own life. Chico was not a saint, but my family and I loved him and he would never take his own life.''

• Chico?

• Strange bedfellows? How about the news that Derek Jeter and Jeb Bush are teaming up to buy the Miami Marlins?

• Did you see where People magazine is calling Julia Roberts the "World's Most Beautiful Women'' for a record fifth time?

• And how about this all-time classic from Mike Tyson: "Everyone has a plan, until they get hit in the face.''

• How good a football player was Aaron Hernandez? How about this from the Boston Globe? "It was Hernandez who set the record for rookie receptions, not Gronk."

• "Gifted'' is a wonderful little movie.

• The latest from the ongoing soap opera that is the Knicks in New York? The marriage between Carmelo Anthony and his celebrity wife "La La'' is reportedly in big-time trouble, complete with this little gem in the New York Post: "Melo's tagline was 'She's married, I'm not.' ''